Removing barriers to trade on environmental goods: an appraisal
Gaelle Balineau () and
Jaime de Melo
World Trade Review, 2013, vol. 12, issue 4, 693-718
Abstract:
This paper reviews the extent of reductions in tariffs on environmental goods (EGs) by country participation in the negotiations mandated by a Doha Ministerial Decision in November 2001. Symptomatic of the cleavages across countries throughout the Round, little progress was achieved during the negotiations in defining an approach to a multilateral reduction in protection of EGs. Conflicting interests and differing perceptions of the benefits from increased trade in EGs was reflected in the different approaches proposed by members (request and offer, integrated project, list approach, hybrid approach), and for the few countries (13) that adopted a list approach, there was little overlap across submissions. For all income groups, on average, EGs are less protected than other goods and countries reduced protection by about 50% from initial levels in 1996 leaving little room for further exchange of market access. Difficulties in applying the two complementary conceptions of EGs: (i) ‘goods for environmental management’, and (ii) ‘environmentally preferable products' are reviewed and mentioned as reasons for the lack of progress during the negotiations. Inspection of the submission lists against a ‘core list’ of 26 EGs drawn up by the WTO shows that this ‘core list’ was mostly made up of products in which developed countries had a comparative advantage, and that countries that submitted lists generally avoided including on their lists the most highly protected goods.
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)
Related works:
Working Paper: Removing Barriers to Trade on Environmental Goods: An Appraisal (2013) 
Working Paper: Removing Barriers to Trade on Environmental Goods: An Appraisal (2013) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:wotrrv:v:12:y:2013:i:04:p:693-718_00
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in World Trade Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().